Lecture 14: Inhalational Anesthesia Flashcards
What is the significance of switching from ether to desflurane as an inhalational anesthetic agent?
Putting fluorine on the diethyl ether = less flammable
What are the 4 benefits of halogenated volatile agents?
- Anesthetic POTENCY
- SOLUBILITY in fat and blood
- Degree of noxious character/PUNGENCY
- CHEAPER cost per mL
What are the key characteristics of nitrous oxide?
- Very rapid onset & offset
- Useful for inhalational sedation (dental procedure)
- Not a potent complete anesthetic alone
- Used in combination with other agents such as opioids for general anesthesia
- Overall use in anesthesia decreasing due to known side-effects
What are the components of general anesthesia?
- Asleep (hypnosis)
- Forgetful (amnesia)
- Comfortable (analgesia)
- Still (immobility/muscle relaxation/Akinesia)
- Unresponsive (blunting of autonomic reflexes)
- tachycardia, hypertension, bradycardia
What are some goals of anesthesia?
NOT arousable
Anesthetic state is readily induced and readily reversible
Fill the motherfucking lungsss in inhalational anesthesia
What are the cerebral effects of anesthesia?
Increase synchrony of brain activity (less entropy)
Anesthetics decrease metabolism
What are the key characteristics of delivery of anesthetic gas?
- Liquid anesthetic agent is vaporized in controlled fashion
- Gas inhaled via breathing circuit to fill lungs
- Uptake into blood and distributed
i. brain, liver, kidney (Vessel Rich Groups)
ii. Fat (lowest % cardiac blood flow)
iii. Muscle (intermediate % blood flow) - Eliminated by pulmonary ventilation
- No metabolic breakdown of inhaled agents
What are the vessel rich groups?
i. brain
ii. liver
iii. kidney
Where are anesthetics least soluble?
In the brain
Where are the anesthetics most soluble? Significance?
In fat
Significance is that anesthetics accumulates in fat
We want to have the LEAST soluble anesthetic so we can reverse the effects most quickly
Desflurane = least soluble = most easily reversible = most expensive
What are the characteristics of a LESS soluble anesthetic?
- Less potent (but can keep gas in lungs)
- FASTER onset/faster offset
- Less accumulation in tissue/fat
What fluoroether has the lowest solubility? Highest solubility?
Desflurane = lowest solubility = least potent = fastest onset/offset Isoflurane = most soluble
What is the organizing principle of inhalational anesthesia?
We are trying to fill the lung with gas
So if the gas is soluble (i.e is readily diffusible into blood), then it is taken out of lung even faster, which runs counter to your goal
That’s why desflurane is most effective
What are the CNS effects of anesthetics?
- produce unconciousnes
- DECREASE cerebral METABOLIC activity
- INCREASE cerebral BLOOD FLOW
- Impair cerebral autoregulation
- Impair memory formation
- Block movement in response to stimulus (at level of spinal cord)
- Dose-dependent changes in EEG
What are the pulmonary/respiratory effects of inhaled agents?
- Profound bronchoDILATION (open airways)
- Increase respiratory rate
- Decrease tidal volume (volume of a regular breath)
- Decrease reflexes to maintain ventilation/oxygenation
- Decrease ventilator response to low blood O2
- Decrease ventilator response to high blood CO2